


Everything in Time

by devera



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gojyo wants to know when</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lj comm [saiyuki_time challenge #9](http://saiyuki-time.livejournal.com/1828.html): First Time. Another slightly experimental piece of writing written in the time limit given.

"But what'll it _feel_ like?" Gojyo asked, and Jien grinned at him, sly and stupid all at once.

"Well, you know when Ziyi kissed you, and your ears went red?"

Forget his ears; Gojyo's _eyes_ felt like they were about to pop out of his skull.

"Not at all like that," Jien concluded, and laughed and clapped him on the back so hard he almost dropped the groceries.

+++++++++

"So, when will it start?" Gojyo wondered, and it seemed to not phase Jien at all that the conversation was taking place in bits and pieces over a period of days, weeks, months.

"Well, you're almost old enough now," Jien said seriously, and handed him the next plate, suds dripping off it and pooling slick on the floor under Gojyo's bare feet. He was only doing it because it was Gojyo's turn to mop. "It could happen any day."

"Tomorrow?" Gojyo asked.

"Sure," Jien shrugged, and handed him another plate.

++++++++

"Maybe there's something wrong with me," Gojyo sighed.

"Yeah," Jien agreed loftily. "Maybe you're a brat who doesn't know when to shut up and go to sleep."

+++++++

"Can I see yours?"

Jien looked at him like he hadn't expected the question. "No," he said flatly.

"Why not? Is there something wrong with it? Don't you like it, or something?"

Jien rolled his eyes, but then, he always did that when he was trying to avoid something.

"There's nothing wrong with it and I like it just fine. But the answer is still no."

"You're just embarrassed," Gojyo declared. "It's probably so small I'd need a magni-"

He came up spluttering a moment latter, soap stinging his eyes, with Jien chuckling and scrubbing twice as hard as before.

"Ow," Gojyo complained, distracted.

"How the hell do you managed to get so dirty anyway?" Jien groused in kind.

++++++++++

"It's because I'm..."

Jien paused in his digging, not that he was really much of a gardener anyway, and turned to stare at him out from under his fraying woven hat. His face was severe, like Gojyo was about to get a hiding, but that had never stopped him in the past.

"A defect," he continued, defiant. "An adbom... ab-bon... _You_ know."

And suddenly Jien was there, right there, and his hands were clenching around Gojyo's upper arms was too tight. It _hurt_ and Gojyo froze like he always did with Ma, even though Jien had never.... But just in case.

"You're _not_ ," Jien said harshly, and gave him a shake he probably meant as gentle. "Fuck, don't you listen to what anyone says."

"But..." Gojyo tried, but Jien wouldn't want to hear that it was Ma who said those things. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

"It's not that," Jien said, a little more gently, and eased up on his grip. "You're just...a late bloomer, okay? Dad was late. I remember him telling me. So it just runs in the family, right?"

"Sure," Gojyo agreed, but he could always tell when Jien was lying.

++++++++

"Oi. _Oi_. Don't just go straight to your- Oh. Well, don't you look a sight?"

"I didn't start it," Gojyo swore, because he _didn't_. But that didn't mean he was going to let some shitty little rich kid hock on him.

"Shit," Jien said without heat. "What's this? Like, the third time this month? Well, come on then. You know the drill."

Gojyo waited until Jien got up and then followed him into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub while Jien got out the plaster and some cotton and the bottle of antiseptic.

"So, I hope you messed his shit up, did you?" 

Gojyo shrugged non-committally. "Sure. A bit," he agreed, and held back a hiss at the sting of antiseptic.

"A bit? You don't sound too sure. Was there more than one of them or something?"

"No."

"No," Jien repeated.

"Don't wanna talk about it," Gojyo mumbled.

+++++++++++

"Fuck, you little bastard!"

Gojyo just laughed. He could outrun Jien any day of the week.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Now you smell like _pansies_! Dandan likes pansies, right, so now she'll like your-"

Jien caught him, just this once, or maybe Gojyo let him, and his brother was still wet and half sudsy from his shower and smelled like the flowery shampoo Gojyo had swapped for his usual stuff and he growled and tickled Gojyo until he couldn't breathe.

"I'm not dating Dandan," Jien said eventually, when all the fight had gone right out of Gojyo.

"Sure you are," Gojyo ribbed. "Why not? She's pretty."

"You know why not."

Gojyo froze, and stared up at his brother. It was the first time he'd ever _said_ it.

"Don't be too fast to grow up, okay?" Jien told him suddenly, quietly, and his big wet hand touched the side of Gojyo's face like just that would leave a bruise he didn't intend. "Because when it happens, you'll never be able to go back."

Gojyo didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but Jien was acting weird.

"Okay," he said carefully, and Jien smiled a smile that made something inside Gojyo ache.

+++++++++++

"Fuck. _Fuck_."

He didn't know where it came from, didn't know what it was. It lay in his hand like something alive, unmoving, cool and hard and bright as a moon, and all around him there were... not people, just _parts_. There, a leg, a torso, fuck, a _head_.

There, the guy's hand that had tried to hold him down while the others...

Gojyo dropped the weapon, and turned around and puked up everything he'd managed to scrounge to eat in the last two days.

"Jien," he gasped, and he was crying, he thought. Maybe it was the stench. He was shaking, couldn't seem to stop, but he could still _feel_ it, part of him like another limb, like the beat of his heart, the breath in his lungs. When it had come, it had been like every good thing in his life focused into one, like all his few happinesses just right there in his hand and it felt... it felt...


End file.
